Modern gymnastics was born in Europe. Its story runs from school yards and open-air training grounds in the early nineteenth century to the multi-discipline championships of today.
The founders
In the early 1800s, two traditions emerged. In Germany, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn opened an outdoor training ground near Berlin in 1811 and developed the Turnen movement, with apparatus that evolved into the parallel bars, horizontal bar and pommel horse. In Sweden, Pehr Henrik Ling developed a system focused on health and movement quality, which influenced physical education across Europe.
Societies and nations
Gymnastic societies spread rapidly through the nineteenth century. The Sokol movement, founded in Prague in 1862, combined physical training with cultural and national identity and became one of the largest gymnastic organisations in Central and Eastern Europe. National federations were formed in many countries, including Italy in 1869.
An international federation
In 1881 several European federations created an international body in Liège, Belgium. It later became the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), the world governing body that still sets the rules today. Gymnastics was on the programme of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.
European Championships
The first men's European Championships in artistic gymnastics were held in Frankfurt in 1955, and the first women's championships followed in Bucharest in 1957. Rhythmic gymnastics held its first European Championships in Madrid in 1978. Over the following decades, championships were added for acrobatic gymnastics, trampoline, aerobic gymnastics and TeamGym.
A European union of gymnastics
In 1982 the European federations formed the Union Européenne de Gymnastique (UEG) to organise continental competitions and develop the sport in Europe. The organisation later adopted the name European Gymnastics. It runs European Championships in all competitive disciplines and festivals such as Eurogym and the Golden Age Gym Festival.
The modern era
Recent decades have brought new scoring rules, with open-ended scores replacing the perfect 10 in artistic gymnastics in 2006, and new competition formats, including European Games in 2015 and 2019 and multi-sport European Championships in 2018 and 2022. Our event archive covers championships from 2013 to 2020.
Where to go next
Read how gymnastics scoring works, or explore the disciplines.